Torre de Especialidades,
Hospital Manuel Gea Gonzales

"The incredible smog-eating building" -CNN

The 2500m2 facade at Torre de Especialidades is a 100m long, curved screen along Avenida San Fernando, a busy arterial in Tlalpan, in the southern quarter of Mexico City.*
Funded by the Ministry of Health, the project is part of a 3-year, $20 billion investment into health infrastructure in Mexico.
Prosolve was chosen by the hospital in part for its anti-microbial, de-polluting effect, as well as providing visual complexity, memorable in form, as a counter to the city's air pollution problem.

According to recent studies of the technology, the facade at Torre de Especialidades is reducing the pollution of 1,000 cars per day.

Project type: Depolluting Quasicrystal Facade
Completion: April, 2013
Client: ICA, S.A.B. de C.V.
Structural Engineering: Buro Happold New York
Material Testing: Kiwa MPA Bautest GmbH, TU Berlin, Fraunhofer IPA Stuttgart
Consultant: Joshua Socolar, Professor, Physics Department, Duke University
Project Size: 35,000m²
Size of Prosolve Facade: 2500m²

The Making of a Depolluting Facade

Prototypes and Development

Prototypes for Torre de Especialidades were installed at our thermoforming factory in Ulm in April, 2012. A 1:1 scale patch was installed onto steel verticals to test the assembly and estimate installation times.

The patch is composed of 4 Mega Panels (clusters of 3-6 modules) taken from the top left corner of the facade in Mexico.

For a detailed look at the development of this project, please see our tumblr.